Hello and welcome to The Marketing Blog. My name is Michael Fleischner and this blog has been developed to share my more than 14 years of Marketing experience with anyone interested in learning more about marketing or Internet marketing. The Marketing Blog markets marketing simple and covers all aspects of marketing with a particular focus on internet marketing.

Monday, January 08, 2007

If you're a small business trying to make it on the Internet you need to understand some of the basics of SEO. You may be advertising online or using Google adwords, but increasing your success is best when you don't have to pay for it. Increasing your organic placement is simple - but its not easy. In this post, I'll highlight a few things that can get you started.

1. Focus on On-page optimization tactics. When you boil it down, this means that you select a keyword phrase that you will optimize for and placing this phrase appropriately in your meta tags, body copy and anchor text.

Make sure you are using keywords with a high KEI. This measure takes into consideration both the popularity and competitiveness of your keywords. By focusing on keywords with a higher KEI, you can optimize your chance for search engines to select your site for keywords at little or no expense.

2. Focus on Off-page optimization tactics. In order to improve your search engine results, you need important websites to link to you. Here are a few ideas to get you started...

A. Manually register your site with DMOZ, also known as the Open Directory Project. The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors and feeds other leading web directories.

B. Manually submit your site to Google. If you'd like to wait, Google will eventually spider your site and return it in search result listings related to your site name and keywords. However, this may take some time. For faster inclusion, visit Google and submit your site manually.

C. Purchase a listing with Yahoo! Directory Submit. Yahoo! like Google provides many search products. However, Directory Submit is essential for any business on the web.

D. Engage in a link building campaign. The more links you have to your site, especially if they have a high Google Page Rank, will signal Google and other search engines that your site is important. A great way to do this is through article submission or affiliate programs. For a great article submission program use Article Submitter Pro.

No matter where you are starting from, be sure to create a list of "to do's" related to search engine optimization. the most important thing to remember is that SEO doesn't happen without you. It requires daily focus and realistic goals.